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Friday, January 25, 2013

A friend of mine
recently circulated on Facebook a picture of George Washington with the
following quotation:

“A free people ought
not only be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and
ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to
abuse them, which would include their own government.”

Like many recent
discussions concerning the second amendment, this quotation immediately brings
up the specter of a tyrannical government as a rational for unfettered gun
ownership, leaps immediately to the idea that we need high powered
assault rifles and semi-automatic handguns in order to overthrow an evil
government.

My first response,
however, was not to wonder about what I might need in order to fight off the invading
army of a tyrannical king, but to wonder if our revered and
ennobled Founding Father might have allowed any of the three hundred slaves he
owned to say such things. Would he have encouraged the men and women he
owned as property to arm themselves with guns and ammunition to protect (or to
demand) their freedom and to protect themselves from their abuser?

Though George
Washington was one of only seven Founding Fathers to liberate his slaves
(something he did not do during his lifetime but only after his death and after
the death of his wife, Martha) and though he may have during his lifetime
written and spoken privately to friends in support of a gradual abolition of
slavery, his public words and actions were consistently in defense of slavery
and in support of slave owners. Whether he was internally conflicted about the
morality of slave ownership, concerned about the fiscal consequences of freeing
his slaves, or worried about the effect abolition would have on the fledgling
country, Washington kept his personal misgivings separate from his public
presidency.

In 1793, President
Washington signed the Fugitive Slave Act which gave slave owners the right
to capture fugitive slaves in any U.S. State, even in any those "safe
harbors" or slave sanctuaries.

In the years 1793-1794
President Washington authorized $400,000 and 1,000 weapons to be given to the
slave owners of the French colony of Saint-Domingue (later Haiti) as
emergency relief in order to put down a slave rebellion. (see Alfred
Hunt, Haiti's Influence on Antebellum America, p. 31). Were these
weapons to be used to protect and defend personal freedom? Hardly.

Would President George
Washington have wanted free black men armed and supplied so they could protect and defend their
freedom? Would he have encouraged them to have weapons and ammunition in
order to protect themselves from those who would abuse them? Even from their masters and owners?

But, it turns out, my
ponderings on this issue were unnecessary; the quote is bogus. It's like
Jesus of Nazareth said, “You can’t believe everything you read on the
internets.”

What President
Washington actually said in his first
annual message to Congress on Friday January 8, 1790 was this: “"A
free people ought not only to be armed but disciplined; to which end a uniform
and well digested plan is requisite: And their safety and interest require that
they should promote such manufactories, as tend to render them independent on
others, for essential, particularly for military supplies."

So, he didn't say what some
are saying he said. But would he have said it? Would he have meant
it? I can imagine that he might have something like this bogus quote, but he wouldn't have
meant it, not for everyone.